Life being a journey

[Moonglow]

Hello,

Just a wandering in thought.

Does the exploration have to an ultimate answer?
Doesn't many answers just lead to more questions?

I have said and heard it said, it is not about the destination, but about the journey.

So it seems for me for quite awhile.

Sure, find answers, but then they seem to morph into something else and at times something completely unexpected.

Some may say experience brings wisdom. Yet wonder if this so why do we (in general) continue to wage war? (for example).

So, seem to be faced with it is about living this life and travel the road and see where it goes. Don't worry about having the answer, for it seems what I need to know at the moment comes along anyways.

To remember I am the traveler and with the travels comes the stories, joys, hardships, and interactions. To take these as of the journey and to listen to what they may tell.

The wisdom, for me, seems to be in being more open to use what is given to better see, hear, feel, and experience life fuller.

Well just a pondering I wanted to share.

What are the thoughts on this?

[Touched]

Great topic MG, and great post.

Absolutely agree it's about the journey, because life isn't static, but a constant process of becoming. Even when we find 'answers' it serves to redefine our perspective thus our goals thus our journey.

If we look for openness, it will become our never ending experience.

[BlueSky]

What I see inherent in all life is evolution. It seems it's purpose is to evolve. What I believe is this evolution includes consciousness and God has a plan that involves the evolved body, mind and consciousness. It's like God has a plan to manifest itself.

[AnotherBob]

“There are three parts to the journey:

the journey from God, the journey to God,

and the journey in God.”

~Sufi Proverb


The first part of the journey is the actualization of the sense of apparent separation from the Divine, which likewise forms the basis for the “Search”, the great pilgrimage of return. We are sent out like filaments of light from the source of all light to illumine the dark spaciousness of the vast unknown. In this way, we each become the avatars of Source, each playing a unique role in a grand choreography of light and shadow far beyond our human comprehension.

In effect, we set aside our prior and eternal realization of Oneness in order to explore the infinite realms of duality, just for the joy of eventually seeing through the temporary facades and discovering again our indivisibility from Source. It is a cosmic game of “Hide & Seek”, of Lover torn asunder from the Beloved and consequently immersed in seemingly endless realms of desire and fear, grasping and avoidance, that constitute the fruit of separation.

In the midst of the ceaseless modifications of consciousness that comprise the flashing worlds of experience, we also gather some fascinating stories and adventures along the way, and it is the cumulative experience of all Its avatars that serves the ongoing Divine evolution and revelation of Self-awareness of Source Itself. Nevertheless, although they are not two, on the first part of our journey, Nirvana is Nirvana and Samsara is Samsara. How will we unify them?

The second part of the journey entails the yearning and consequent search for the happiness of re-union. In reality, all our efforts to find our way back from the sense of apparent separation and merge again with our own Source are really only the effort of Love to recognize and remember Itself. It is the primordial template from which all of our individual stories of seeking are cast — Love’s play of forgetting and remembering.

This is the “journey to God”, which will eventually be seen and recognized as a dream journey, a virtual reality journey, since in truth there has never been any actual separation or division. Samsara and Nirvana have never been separate. Love has never been other than Itself, despite the myriad disguises It indulges to momentarily play a game of “lost and found” with Itself.

As the journey reveals its secrets, the persistent signs may hint that there is only God, of which we are each unique individualized expressions, and that God is Love Itself. Nevertheless, this remains to be directly experienced and then fully integrated, or embodied. In the meantime, we seekers mostly still continue in hot pursuit of ourselves like a determined dog chasing its tail. We label such effort as our “Spiritual Path”, “the Way”, the “Practice” — complete with all sorts of contrived and hopeful schemes and strategies to achieve our goal. However, when the fruit has ripened, it no longer depends on the tree.

The “journey in God”, on the contrary, is just spontaneously remembering and effortlessly living in and as our own natural, primordial state, embodying our original innocence in the way we relate and behave, and selflessly serving all. It is based on the letting go, or surrendering, of any sense of personal will. Love lives us, without resistance or complaint. All is well.

Moreover, it is not a personal attainment, the result of fortuitous circumstances, deftly borrowed formulas auspiciously applied, or even awesome effort. All unfolds automatically. The subconscious simply ceased projecting an independent entity. The “person” we took ourselves to be, our provisional self-image, is now seen through as a sort of fictional narrative or virtual reality, a make-believe character in an unfathomable dream that God (Source) is projecting like a complex hologram, and purely for the sake of Divine Enjoyment.

Life “in God” thus assumes an intensity that cannot be described to or by the mind still entranced by the fascination with “choice” or preference. There is an infinite spectrum of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, loss and gain, and it is all welcomed, it is all beautiful – even the “ugly”. The entire panorama, in whatever form it presents itself, is recognized even as it arises as nothing more than the quicksilver mask of the Beloved, our own True Nature and Identity.

The way now is all about “just being” – that is enough, it has always been enough. How wonderful, and yet how simple and ordinary! What’s complicated is clinging to the belief that we have ever been bound and must be freed, redeemed, saved, or even that we need to be re-united with what we already Are!

This is also when we can say: “I am you.” The “other” — the object of our search or of our avoidance — is perceived to be none other than oneself, and so selfless service arises naturally, spontaneously, joyfully. The Heart knows Itself, loves Itself, serves Itself.

As this journey in the heart-mind of God becomes more and more effortless, a certain inevitability takes over and starts pulling itself further into the core of itself. Paradoxically, this free and unburdened consciousness is also expanding infinitely in all directions, and thus discovering itself afresh in each moment of Now. Furthermore, both Samsara and Nirvana are automatically recognized as conceptual designations, obsolete mental fabrications, and Silence replaces the habit energy of compulsive thought.

Yes, it is all a dream, but even though there may be an awakening to that fact, the dream still goes on regardless – it’s just that now we are awake in the dream, and can recognize it as such, and embracing it all as our own lucid awake awareness, indivisible from any experience. Sometimes we may come across others who are also awake in this dream, and together we can really laugh!

True transcendence is not avoidance or disassociation – it is passionately present and fully embodied head to toe. It is not frightened nor threatened by the implications of human incarnation. It has nothing to win or lose. There is truly only Love recognizing Itself behind the masks, playing joyously and gratefully against the background of the aware space in which all appears, thrives for a while, and disappears.

There is no longer any tendency to fixate attention exclusively in or on any part of it. There is no clinging to or running away from any of it, no regret or expectation that any of it be anything other than what it is. God has woken up to God.

Rather than signaling some kind of conclusive finality, however, this is all still a matter of movement within a dream, or ripples on a pond. Even the notion of God is still a figment of the dream, and when the dream itself is recognized for what it is — a play of consciousness, or projection of mind — then God, journey, and dreaming dissolve in the plain and obvious realization.

Realization of what? Realization that no thing or event has ever happened, no body has gone anywhere. Everything is utterly perfect, just as it is, and so not even perfect — beyond perfection and its presumed lack, beyond all stories and conceits!

How amazing, yet how utterly empty and transparent are both self and phenomena! Beyond that, no human notion, language, or imagination can ever reach. There is only that timeless phrase that points that way: “Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond! Hail to That!”

[lemex]

Originally Posted by Self

What I see inherent in all life is evolution. It seems it's purpose is to evolve. What I believe is this evolution includes consciousness and God has a plan that involves the evolved body, mind and consciousness. It's like God has a plan to manifest itself.

Indeed!

[Moonglow]

Hello,

Thank you all for the thoughts and reflections.

So, more thoughts on this.

Have had loved ones pass on from this life and seen the body empty of that which animated it and gave the person who was known. Yet, these same presence that animated and was the person I've known here, has come to me in many ways. Through memories, dreams, creature that pause and give messages, and through feeling them pass through as I may be thinking of them.

It at times comforting and been times a sigh passes through the heart. Has me know in a way that the journey does not stop here, that it goes on. Maybe seem different or even not knowing exactly, but it does carry on.

For me, it does not try to be more or less, it does not demand anything. intertwine and at times plays with in and of itself and that which lives.

Some paths seem well traveled, while other are a new and further expand the journey.

At times feel alone, but then reminded never alone. Carry with me all those who are in my life and have passed from this life, but still held with in the thoughts and love, still vibrate in some way.

Which all and all gave and continues to give life meaning and forge the paths that one may travel. Whether by oneself or at times with other travelers.

The journey just go on. What for and where seems will and does unfold in its due time.

[Khalli]

Originally Posted by AnotherBob

....

The way now is all about “just being” – that is enough, it has always been enough. How wonderful, and yet how simple and ordinary! What’s complicated is clinging to the belief that we have ever been bound and must be freed, redeemed, saved, or even that we need to be re-united with what we already Are!

I like all you posted there, but, this part is what resonates with Me and how I have been approaching life the last couple of months. Life is better now.

[Moonglow]

Hello,

I've come across at times that "we" are to remember.
Come across that "we" are or going to be reunited.
Ask; What is there to remember?
With what are "we" separate?

Yes, suppose such question can lead down the path of complicating things.
Through trying to remember, forgetting to take in what is happening right now.
Setting up boundaries and limiting the view of life, IMO.

For if life flows through us, then are "we" forgotten?
If life flows through "us", as it does through all, then are "we" separated?

Perhaps, it is just mind games that get in the way. Perhaps it is just how one is willing to understand and do.

Still, of the journey. What one takes from it, gives to it, and ways in which it is traveled seems the choices at times presented and/or given.

So, the questions pop in. For it seems to me life has not and does not forget, I just think at times my part in it is so small that perhaps it just doesn't matter in the long run.

Then reminded with out me, without you, it holds no meaning.

The journey that is traveled gives meaning. Although, seem small and seem forgotten at times it weaves into the fabric of life itself.

Never forgotten, never separated. For how can it be, when it is, I am, you are, life itself unfolding before all?

Thoughts that come to me and remind this human-being of being of life and it does not forget or is separated from anything.

Welcome any further thoughts/reflections on this

[Unseelie Queen]

“Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.” --Hermann Hesse

I view it as similar to to a fairytale. (The darker, original fairytales of old.)

Inner exploration, to me, is just as much of a journey as outer exploration within our world.

Yes, it does seem there are no true answers, no absolutes-- stumbling across an answer simply opens a door to yet another path, another forest that we must go through in order to illuminate what we have learned. Behind every door is yet another door, behind every monster a fear, behind every fear our own face... Labyrinths within labyrinths, endless widening, spiraling concentric circles leading deeper into the forest (so to speak--going with the fairytale theme).. Yes, I'm aware of how insufferably corny I sound right now. But I do think it's an endless journey and truly, I'm not sure if I'd want an end-- action, self-awareness and vigilance is needed, always. I'd say "I'll rest when I'm dead," but I know the dead are often restless.

[Moonglow]

Originally Posted by Unseelie Queen

“Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.” --Hermann Hesse

I view it as similar to to a fairytale. (The darker, original fairytales of old.)

Inner exploration, to me, is just as much of a journey as outer exploration within our world.

Yes, it does seem there are no true answers, no absolutes-- stumbling across an answer simply opens a door to yet another path, another forest that we must go through in order to illuminate what we have learned. Behind every door is yet another door, behind every monster a fear, behind every fear our own face... Labyrinths within labyrinths, endless widening, spiraling concentric circles leading deeper into the forest (so to speak--going with the fairytale theme).. Yes, I'm aware of how insufferably corny I sound right now. But I do think it's an endless journey and truly, I'm not sure if I'd want an end-- action, self-awareness and vigilance is needed, always. I'd say "I'll rest when I'm dead," but I know the dead are often restless.

Hello Unseeloe Qeen,

Ah, the old fairytales. Tales of caution, morals, and consequences of ones actions. Familiar paths and although some "modern" tales may alter a little in telling, there still seem in some the same running themes. Yet, what in us are they based on? What path is being laid or have been laid.

Whoe to the one who choose to travel alone or wander from the trail. ( going with the fairytale theme). There is caution and fear of monsters thrown at the one who may stray or wander to explore the unknown forest.

Yet, the traveler may find great adventure and treasures hidden with in the forest. Come to understand and respect it. Whether be with in or outside oneself.

The monsters are found to made with in ones mind. Some found to be protectors and others may reveal ones own strengths and weaknesses.
While others may provoke one to stand up and protect.

Not always easy, but seems to have its purpose in whatever way it may appear or be found. The path twists and turns through the forests and clearings.
The journey is what's traveled. One journey may end and another seems to begin.

Such of which stories/tales are made of. To pass on the adventure and what may be learned and what one may change.

Guess, went on a bit here. Felt a bit inspired by what you presented.